For example, in Italy, the workforce is highly fragmented due to numerous small and medium-sized consultancy firms working for the same client. Each company might assign only a few workers to a project, scattering employees across different locations. Since workers serving the same client have different legal employers, it’s unclear whom to address with demands, making organizing particularly challenging. This dynamic doesn’t exist in the same way in the US.
Ouch. This absolutely exists in the US too. It is concerning that organizers that claim to be experts in tech organizations don’t have this awareness.
In Italy they are probably above 90% of the workforce. They are the defining form of IT sector. In the USA way less, and also individual contractors are legal, while in Italy they are not, so there’s a whole issue of illicit dynamics (“body rental”) which in the USA are equally a problem, but they are not illicit and nobody cares about them.
Shitty, exploitative consultancies exist wherever there’s an IT sector, but in certain countries, like Italy, Brazil, or Romania, they are the only form and this shapes the union landscape a lot. Romenia proves that this is not a blocker to achieve high union density though.
The fragmenting of teams needs more attention. My group uses a follow the sun model that has our team split up across at least seven countries, plus a decent chunk are always contracted through a vendor. Add in remote workers, and it’s very difficult to see an effective way to organize.
Go Luigi.
I know working sucks but I don’t think generic IT firm is killing people for profit at the speed that the health insurance executives do.
Let’s not muddy waters plz
Are you saying that not all bourgeois are the same?
Trade unions stuck in the past shocker.
